ENG -The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain, is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning Great Britain, the northeast part of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land border, sharing it with the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea. The largest island, Great Britain, is linked to France by the Channel Tunnel.
The United Kingdom is a unitary state consisting of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It is governed by a parliamentary system with its seat of government ...

The UK has this summer proved to be a more popular tourist destination for other European travellers than in past years, according to new data.
An analysis by the hotel price comparison site, Trivago, found that the UK was this year the fifth most popular travel destination for Europeans, up from eighth place last year.
Other European destinations that come ahead of the UK are France in fourth place, Italy in fifth place, Germany in second and Spain in first.
European travellers most likely to visit the UK are the French, for whom the UK is the fifth most popular tourist destination, ...

The UK reached 8.9mn digital video recorders (DVRs) sold by the end of last March, with nearly 1mn units added in the first quarter of this year, according to the latest figures from the country's communications watchdog, Ofcom.Ofcom's Digital Progress Report found that there are now around 5mn Sky customers with a Sky+ service, around 600,000 customers of cable operator Virgin Media with a V+ account, a further 600,000 homes with IPTV service BT Vision or Top Up TV (a pay variant of DTT platform Freeview), and over 2.6mn Freeview digital video recorders on the market.Meanwhile, the number of ...

Silver has been revealed as the UK’s most popular car colour, according to a new survey.In the first three moths of 2009, used silver car sales accounted for 24.8 per cent of the market ahead of blue cars, which made up 21.4 per cent of sales.Black, grey and red cars were also popular, sharing 17.8 per cent, 10.1 per cent and 9 per cent of sales respectively.In the same period last year, blue cars were the most popular. Grey cars have gained in popularity the most, with sales up more than 3 per cent.Colours which had the lowest market share were aluminium and brass, with a 0.0006 per ...

Mortgage approvals in UK at lowest level for 13 monthsBank agreements for homebuyers decline, seen by economists as further sign of British market downturn British banks approved the fewest mortgages for house purchases in more than a year in October, with economists warning the decline could signal the start of a downturn in the UK housing market.Mortgage approvals fell to a 13-month low of 40,488 last month, down from 41,576 in September, according to the industry trade body UK Finance. Related: We needed a housing revolution. The chancellor gave us a sticking plaster | Miatta Fahnbulleh Continue reading...

Shirley Porter on stage is a warning to us all. I hope it’s a sell-outWhy should councils worry about treating the poor badly when the Tesco heiress’s ‘mean and nasty’ policy in the 1980s was not harshly punished? At least Gregory Evans’s play, Shirleymander, will remind usSome good news for a change: a play, Shirleymander by Gregory Evans, is to be staged near Grenfell Tower. Good news because it will remind everyone of what Shirley Porter, leader of Westminster council, did in the 1980s. I’ve often mentioned her over the years, hoping she would be a warning from history and housing policy would improve, but no such luck, so we need this play.Porter, heiress of the Tesco fortune, was accused of “unlawful and corrupt policy of gerrymandering the poor … and homeless out of the borough”. This time there is is no suggestion that the aim is to remove certain voters from the borough, but three months after the Grenfell fire, only 10 families had been permanently rehoused, and “the poor” are being generally jerked about, scattered and dumpe

Property unaffordable for 100,000 households a year in EnglandReport finds number of households priced out is up by 30,000 a year owing to shortage of affordable homes to rent or buyAlmost 100,000 households in England are being priced out of the property market each year because of a shortage of affordable homes to rent or buy, according to a report.Research by the estate agent Savills, shared with the Guardian, found the number of priced-out households had risen from its previous projection in 2015 of 70,000 a year. This was in part because of a change in how housing need is assessed, but also due to rising prices and stagnant wage growth. Continue reading...

If Britain does build a million homes, let’s not make a million more people lonely | Pragya AgarwalThe budget pledge on housing is good news. But as I realised on moving to the UK from India, it must be designed to increase community, not isolationThe chancellor has pledged to fix the UK’s “broken housing market”. The investment he announced in this week’s budget – which included £15.3bn of new funding – is meant to deliver at least 300,000 more houses by the 2020s. He has also pledged to deliver five new garden towns by 2050 which would mean almost a million more houses. Related: Loneliness kills: how can housing help? The risk with redeveloping housing is social cleansing; spaces can become unaffordable to existing residents Related: How to create happy communities through co-housing Continue reading...